Try as You Might
by Kakashihasnicearms
Summary: Sasuke and Naruto aren't like water and oil. They're like oil and fire, a deadly combination. And the fuse is lit.
1. Adoption

Try as You Might ~ Chapter 1 ~ Adoption

A/N: You might be wondering: what happened to 'Masked Koi'? 'Why is there a new fanfic?! What are you doing?! Are you abandoning it?' The answer: no. I'm just taking a break. It's taken a lot out of me.

But for the time being, enjoy this new one. Please don't kill me. (殺さないで下さい。) (also, no, this is not from Google Translate.)

And, warning: Updates will be sporadic. Sometimes a flurry of them when I'm pressed for time, and sometimes it'll seem like I've dropped off the grid. Pairings are undecided but if you have any lovely ideas, don't hesitate!

So…enjoy^^

* * *

Iruka pulled out a paper with a flourish. It gleamed white with black ink impressed into it and Naruto tensed in his seat. If Iruka was smiling that much about nothing more than a half sheet of paper with his messy handwriting on it there was only one thing it could be. Naruto's face scrunched up into a pained one as he gripped his blonde locks in horror. _An oral test! I didn't study at all!_

"So," Iruka smiled. "I've arranged you all in pairs to complete a research project, which is due in five days."

Naruto blanched and barely heard his own name when Iruka called it out. "Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke, your research topic is a minor clan of Konoha. There's a list in your textbook in the back," Iruka said shortly before continuing with a few names.

Naruto's head dropped on the table with a dull thud. _This is…this is so much worse. I know I have bad luck, but this is pushing it. Couldn't I have been with Shikamaru or something? Sasuke is nothing but a jerk!_

"Now, I want a detailed report. Please pick up one of these papers as you walk out; they have your outline," Iruka said as the bell chimed with orange rays of sun slowly meandering into the room. Naruto evaded Sasuke's eyes that burned holes in him and ran as fast as he could, anywhere but close to Sasuke.

Naruto's arm was caught so suddenly as he passed his swing that he fell to the ground, scraping his elbow painfully. He jerked his arm back from Sasuke, who'd easily caught up to him, and nursed his wound that stung with dirt mixed into his bloody elbow. "What was that for?" Naruto looked at Sasuke accusingly.

"We have to go buy supplies for our report," Sasuke said coldly. "And I'm not failing this just because you're my partner."

"Not like I wanted to be your partner either," Naruto huffed. Sasuke sent him a withering glare before motioning for Naruto to follow him into a store with all kinds of supplies for arts and crafts. Naruto's eyes bulged at the prices. He wasn't a math genius but he quickly realized that most of the things here would cost around thirty or forty bowls of Ichiraku Ramen—it was expensive.

Naruto made the mistake of looking the shopkeeper in the eye; the old woman with only a few teeth left and gnarled hands glared hatefully at him. Sasuke peeked at Naruto, wondering what kind of ridiculous face he might've pulled to get the old woman to glare at him but went back to the paper in hand.

"Oh, Sasuke-kun, what do you need?" she smiled sweetly at him. "I'll let you have everything you want for fifty percent off. Now, let me see what you need."

Naruto bitterly watched as she picked up the best looking things for him and rang it up and bagged it for him and forced Naruto to carry it. Sasuke didn't even thank the woman. To his shock, she didn't even seem angry. Naruto glared at Sasuke's head as he followed his partner to his home.

Yellow tape was simply cut in the middle of the gates and swayed from the sides when a breeze blew past it. Naruto could only stare in horror as he saw the white outlines of so many people that had died. The sheer amount of white was enough to make Naruto feel sick but the thought that Sasuke had seen the bodies and the killings was a thousand times worse.

Naruto was a dreadful pale white when he stepped into Sasuke's home. A cat jumped from the shadows and purred against Naruto's leg, its whiskers ticking his legs. The blonde boy smiled and patted the tabby cat on the head before it scampered away as Sasuke moved it aside with his foot and motioned for Naruto to follow.

"What'd you do that for?" Naruto scowled as Sasuke sat at a large low table that didn't match the room.

"It was annoying," Sasuke said, stating the obvious. "I'm going to get some food. You stay here, don't move, don't touch anything, and pick a clan."

Naruto grumbled a few choice words before picking up the book and flipping to the back without regard for the care of Sasuke's book. He looked at the list of minor clans and squinted at it. Most of the clans listed were affiliated with Konoha but had the label of being destroyed during some war.

Naruto sighed, "Minor clan…minor clan…" he trailed his finger on the list, looking for any without names that weren't too hard to write out in kanji. "…um…Ha…Hatake? Maybe this'll work," Naruto decided with a nod. It was peculiar, having only one person left, and that's what caught his eye.

"Hey, Sasuke! I chose one so get your butt over here and help me! And get me some food too; I'm starving!" Naruto hollered. As if on cue, his stomach rumbled loudly. He smiled sheepishly at his stomach. _I forgot to eat that breakfast that the ANBU made me. It was pancakes today too…_

"Hey, SASUKE!" Naruto yelled out again with his chin resting on his palm looking bored.

There was no reply. Naruto flipped to the page it was on and began to read about the clan. Three paragraphs in, the blonde was bored to tears with so many words he didn't know and a history he really could care less about. He groaned and stood and began to look for Sasuke.

He heard muffled screams and walked to the source. The sliding door in Sasuke's room was ajar and the Uchiha boy was being restrained by two figures much taller than either boy. Naruto took a step back in shock and fear, not wanting to get beaten. Sasuke sent him a wide-eyed look with his mouth covered tightly and his body as still as a stone with the kunai at his neck.

Orange light bathed the room that filtered in from the window and Naruto charged at the two men. The force at which Naruto threw himself at surprised them and they let go of Sasuke, not expecting Naruto's brute strength. Sasuke launched himself at them with taijutsu kicks landing solidly. A puff of smoke later and it was nothing more than a scroll. Sasuke whirled around only to see Naruto fall to the ground with the kunai slicing his side and staining his shirt red with blood. Sasuke froze with his mouth slightly agape and the same helpless feeling washing over him. _We're going to die!_ The intruders gathered both boys and dashed out of the Uchiha compound. Naruto struggled against his attackers, screaming and thrashing despite the horrible pain he was in. More blood seeped out and Sasuke's throat vibrated with terrified screams.

The sky turned upside down and Sasuke and Naruto hit something hard and landed painfully on the ground outside. Naruto held his wound in pain, growing dizzy. Sasuke watched in shock as a Konoha ANBU quickly drove a tanto blade in their stomachs and slashed behind their knees and grabbed their collars in a gloved hand, "Who the hell is your commander?"

The man spit at the porcelain mask and the ANBU killed him instantly. The other man smirked at the grey-vested ANBU and was then drowning from the inside out from his own blood gushing into his lungs. Not a scream could leave his throat and he thrashed violently until he lay still.

"Where are they?!" faraway voices angrily yelled within the compound along with their hurried footsteps. Sasuke looked and saw a plume of ash and smoke and smelled burning only a few houses down. He screamed as another explosion burned down another house. _They're looking for me, aren't they? Itachi's coming to kill me!_

Instead of Itachi, more people bearing a foreign hitai-ate and strange getups appeared with kunai in their hands. The ANBU stood in front of the two boys, clutching a tanto with former-living people's blood on it. The ANBU seemed to become as fluid as water as their body moved from enemy to enemy like lightning and rivulets of blood pooled onto the ground after spurting like a broken dam onto the standard-issue ANBU vest and tanto.

More enemies gathered like flies to honey towards the lone ANBU. The ANBU sighed audibly and a lightning dragon materialized before roaring. Sasuke shielded his eyes from the too-bright jutsu and when it was gone, bodies littered the streets, twice as many as had died on the street just recently within the Uchiha compound.

It was a bloodbath. Sasuke's hands unclenched and clenched as his teeth chattered and his wide eyes stared at the stench of death and the bloody, dead bodies in fear and just waited for Itachi's kunai to slice his throat.

Only, it never came.

The ANBU gathered the boys gently and Sasuke could only stare at the bloodstains on the gloves, the vest, and the strands very short silver hair that tickled his face. Naruto was regained consciousness as the ANBU adjusted his or her (Sasuke honestly couldn't tell) in their bloody arms and the ANBU stopped again atop a roof to wrap the boy in bandages. During the brief stop, Sasuke got a good view of Konoha. The gates and market district were completely overrun with flames and demolished buildings and distant ants that wielded fire and water and earth jutsu. The Uchiha boy couldn't see the rivers of blood that flowed through the streets of Konoha like hundreds of broken arteries. By the Hokage faces, there was a line of dark dots against the tan stone: the civilians desperate to get into the safe areas behind the faces.

The ANBU started to jump over buildings at Jounin speed and was moving towards the Hokage tower. "Hey…why are we going there?" Sasuke asked. "Shouldn't you take us to the Hokage faces?"

"Hokage-sama ordered me to bring you two to him," she said plainly. Sasuke imagined the face behind the mask. He imagined soft feminine features that matched the voice and wondered why her hair was so short. Was it in a bun? Sasuke craned his neck to see, to distract himself from the horror that bled below him and the stains on her uniform. He clung to her neck to get a better look at her peculiarly (silver hair, he noticed) short hair and she adjusted Naruto in her arms again. Sasuke was reminded of a mother holding a baby with the way her arm supported him gently yet firmly.

There had been a few women with small children in the Uchiha clan before they'd been murdered who held their exhausted children like the ANBU when they walked back from the park, and Sasuke had played with a few of the younger children. One of them was a boy who was half Uchiha and half something else three years behind him named Sugi. If Sugi had been alive right now, he'd be five. Sasuke almost smiled at the memory of Sugi; he'd been awfully smart for his age, even for an Uchiha, and already had a few jutsu in his repertoire. Sasuke hadn't been jealous of Sugi; in fact, he'd told his father Sugi should go into the Academy and become really strong and cool, but Fugaku's scathing reply was that the boy wasn't a full Uchiha (it showed in his features with his not-quite black hair and narrower face and thin, long, slender fingers and somehow un-Uchiha body physique) and therefore wasn't worthy of such a high honor. Sasuke had told Sugi apologetically that Fugaku wouldn't allow it and Sugi nodded like he knew Fugaku would say that and said it was okay and that it would be best if he didn't stand out. That had been a day before Itachi had killed him.

The female ANBU stopped at the outdoor steps of the tower and pulled open the door and a cacophony of voices yelling orders to copy that scroll and then destroy it to Genin's orders to assist in speeding up the evacuation process. The ANBU acted like there was no one in her way and she briskly walked to the Hokage.

"Hokage-sama, I've brought Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto," she bowed after letting them down. She knelt to patch up Naruto's wound and she froze for a moment, seeing that the wound was closing before her eyes and patched him up. She looked back up to the Hokage after putting away the gauze and giving Naruto and Sasuke each a piece of candy to bring their blood sugars back up.

"If I may, can I leave these two with a Genin so I can return to the front lines?" she asked.

"You are not needed there," Sarutobi said coldly.

"Then where am I needed? Evacuation?" she stood up straight, ready to spring out like a rabbit to carry out her orders.

"No," Sarutobi's fighting gear helmet gleamed like an old, tired horse in once-gleaming armor that stood rusted and too old to run into battle. Yet here he was, a loyal steed. "Naruto and Sasuke are the goals of this invasion, if the current rubble and ash claiming the Uchiha compound and village are any indicators. Kakashi-kun is taking care of much of the front lines along with many of his Jounin peers. Naruto and Sasuke need to be kept safe and the shelters aren't airtight. Our attackers are persistent and skilled and will break through those shelters and endanger the whole of Konoha. As a result, these two need to be kept somewhere they won't be found easily. You are the only shinobi I can trust with this assignment."

"Hokage-sama," her voice turned to ice dipped in acid. The room dropped several degrees. "This band," she pointed to the red one around her upper arm, "Means that I am unstable. I'm afraid I can't accept this assignment. Please let me go to the front lines. I promise I will be of much better use there. If I don't go, Kakashi-san is going to be killed."

"Nonsense," Sarutobi snapped. "You're not unstable. If you were, you wouldn't even be active duty. I don't want to hear any more excuses!" Sarutobi clenched his fist. "Your mission is to protect Naruto and Sasuke until it is safe enough for them to come back. In other words, you are adopting them," Sarutobi held out two scrolls, one slightly bigger than the other. "That contains your more detailed S-Rank mission assignment. I need to go before the village burns because you've wasted enough of my time whining and making up excuses—"

"I'm not making excuses!" she yelled defiantly. "My son was stolen from me! You've never felt the feeling of losing a child!" she breathed in and out and clenched her slender, lady-like fingers and Sasuke felt the same fear coming from her when he saw his parents dead on the floor.

"Please," Sarutobi's eyes softened as he made his way to the door and placed a hand on her shoulder, making her flinch hard and stop breathing for a moment, "If not for me, then for your child."

The ANBU could barely speak as her voice grew more and more nonexistent, "Hai, Hokage-sama. I will do my best."

Sarutobi disappeared in a flash. Naruto tugged on her vest, "Lady…what's going on?"

She ignored Naruto's question and took him and Sasuke in her arms. She sprinted out of the tower at full speed and something wet hit Sasuke's hand. He ignored it as fear rose in his chest and he shut his eyes tight, wanting nothing more than to run away.

She casted a genjutsu over herself and the two boys and put in all her strength to jump over the front lines, something worse than a bloodbath, and landed on the top of Konoha's gates. She slipped past the other enemies and fellow dying Konoha shinobi unnoticed except for one shinobi with a thousand birds chirping in his hand as he drove it through another enemy.


	2. Sleep

Try as You Might ~ Chapter 2 ~ Sleep

A/N A longer chapter! It's slow so please be patient if you want something huge to happen. I promise I have those kinds of things planned in the future and the only thing I'll say is that it'll involve dark stuff so…yeah…

* * *

"You know, we have this project due in like four days," Naruto said, smiling.

"Oh?" the porcelain mask nodded in his direction, watching Naruto scamper just ahead of her and Sasuke on the road. The sun cast warm rays of sunshine that drenched the path in light and made the trees look greener. Naruto was especially excited about being outside of the village, having seemingly completely forgotten about the destruction that had enveloped the village just hours ago. Sasuke was more reserved and looked more cautious than anything else.

"Yeah," Naruto's smile morphed into the Yondaime's grin. "Iruka-sensei picked the partners and I was stuck with Sasuke and our project was to research a minor clan. While Sasuke was taking his sweet time getting food or sitting on the toilet or whatever—"

"Was not!" Sasuke hissed.

"—and I picked some clan called Hakane or something," Naruto said. "You're like, an ANBU right? So you know stuff, right? I forgot all the books at Sasuke's house so could you help? Or maybe bring us to a library?"

The ANBU had changed into a white t-shirt that had a design on it. It was the kind of design that one uses wax crayons to make a design on a shirt with an iron. The heat of the iron causes the wax to melt and the color seeps onto the shirt. It was a childish drawing of a cat with orange stripes on white fur and large, thick, black whiskers and eerie green eyes. She also wore a dark blue skirt that had the same type of design concept, except with a single white cloud on the side. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and looked at the two boys who wore matching blue shirts and white shorts. Her mask was still on though.

"Naruto, don't be stupid. We're not—" Sasuke started.

"That sounds like a good idea," she said forcibly. Sasuke could hear the fakeness in her voice and made a face at her. "There's a large town about two miles from here. I'm sure they have a library. Hakane, right?"

"Yeah!" Naruto ran back and grabbed her hand and tugged her forward. She relented and stayed at her own pace. "Patience, Naruto. Don't tell me you're hungry again."

"Uh…" Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

She sighed loudly, just as Sasuke did while he glared. The ANBU shook her head in disbelief.

"What's your name anyway?" Sasuke asked. "You know our names, despite the fact at least I've never met you. I don't know about him," Sasuke jerked a thumb at Naruto who was back to prancing on the path laughing and catching dragonflies and yelping as a bee stung him.

"Yonomi," she said.

"How come you bother with him?" Sasuke crossed his arms at her.

"He's a good distraction. Do you want to see someone smile or do you want to keep replaying Konoha's destruction over and over in your head? I see it in my dreams. I don't want to see it during the day too," she replied.

Sasuke looked away, not having anything to point out in her argument. She was right but her pacifism bugged him. _Why is she so nonchalant about it all anyway?_ If it were him, he'd ditch Naruto and save Konoha himself. Sasuke frowned. _I'm not strong enough._ Memories of Itachi's threat came like a punch to the gut and he froze in his tracks.

Yonomi looked at the boy as he began to hyperventilate and shake and grow paler by the second. She snapped her fingers in front of his face a few times before he blinked back into the world of the living. "I thought I said to focus on Naruto."

Sasuke glared at her. "Leave me alone."

She seemed to have no reaction and if she did, Sasuke couldn't tell from under her mask. He had the sudden urge to rip off her mask and scream at her lethargy, scream at her to show anger, pain, or anything that could signify her as living. Sasuke was beginning to wonder if her defiant statement of her loss of her child was a bluff. He'd expect someone who lost something or someone they cared about to be more angry or resentful instead of acting like nothing bad ever happened.

"Stop running around in the fields, you'll fall into—" Yonomi started before Naruto's shriek cut her off. "Idiot," she muttered under her breath, something Sasuke barely caught. She stalked over to where he was splashing around in a muddy pond that was surprisingly deep and surrounded by thick tall grasses.

She just observed the scene for a moment, looking at Naruto. Naruto was drowning in the pond, unable to grasp the grasses since they grew in super-saturated soil and therefore had little grip on the soil and just slid into the water and floated down. She picked him up by the back of his collar and plopped him onto the path. "You can't swim."

"What of it?" Naruto's cheeks were flushed and his arms crossed and he shivered violently; the sun did little to warm him despite its unending rays.

"Sasuke, can you swim?" Yonomi asked.

Sasuke remained silent, looking at the pond Naruto had slipped into. "No, then," she decided.

* * *

The good thing about Naruto, Yonomi noticed, was his ability to just be extremely cheerful all the time. He was incredibly grateful for his ramen even though he complained on the side that it wasn't as good as Ichiraku's, he still slurped greedily. Yonomi wasn't much of a fan of greasy and salty noodles so she settled for sliced seasonal and pickled vegetables with some tea, sharing the plate with Sasuke.

"Can I have more?" Naruto asked, bringing her out of her stupor of staring at him. She blinked before nodding numbly. Sasuke seemed to darken in demeanor next to her but now wasn't the place to confront him.

Three bowls and a mountain of napkins covered in broth and grease from his mouth (and somehow his forehead) later the bill was kindly placed in front of her. The waitress smiled at her. "Are they your children?"

"Legally speaking, yes," Yonomi said as she painfully gave a mint to the woman. The woman seemed more than delighted to take her money and hoped for Naruto to eat more but Yonomi practically dragged him away with Sasuke looking strangely smug.

Yonomi went to an inn and booked a room for the week. She handed over the cash hastily before pushing the two into the room and sitting down hard onto the bed. Night quickly came and the two slept soundly after they showered and changed into new clothes. Yonomi laid awake in the darkness, staring up at the outlines of her hand that held a photo of her family.

 _Yonomi smiled at her son as she placed a cup of fresh tea in front of him along with some sweets when he came home from training with some of his friends. The boy was young, only four, grinned at her with crumbs sticking to his face. Then he looked around and said, 'Where's Tou-san?' Yonomi winced before pouring another cupful for herself. 'He's working. The fact that he's coming home so late means that he's very important where he is. I hear he's slated to become the next department head.'_

' _So?' he frowned. 'So what he's important for a department head. I want him here. Kaa-san is always alone when I'm not here and Tou-san is never here and I know the old ladies around here don't like you and are mean to you. They don't hurt you, do they?' his black eyes, ones that matched her own, looked so innocent and worried and purely wanting to help. Yonomi bit into a sweet, even though she didn't like them. She forced back a gag at the sweet taste and replied, 'No. Don't worry about me. Just focus on becoming strong so you can be beside your father.'_

 _As her son slept, Yonomi locked the door to the bathroom and slid against the door and took off a bandage with a quick tug and looked at the scars on her upper thigh and forearm and the bruises on her feet and the back of her neck and stomach and covered her mouth with her hand and tears squeezed out of her eyes._

Dawn's light pierced into her eyes and she wiped her cheeks roughly with the back of her hand. "You never came home," she whispered into the early morning and her words fell on deaf ears.

"Who never came home?" Naruto asked.

Yonomi gripped the fraying ends of her shirt and shook her head. "I just had a bad dream," and slipped the photo back into her pocket. She looked over at Sasuke and his chest didn't rise and fall evenly. "Sasuke, you're not fooling anyone. Come on, I'll teach you two how to swim. There's a waterfall near here that has a shallow stream."

To get to the stream turned out to be a bit of a hike. The two were on their hands and knees panting when they finally reached the stream. Naruto flopped on his back with his eyes tight as he breathed in and air. Sasuke faired a bit better as he only panted for a few minutes before catching his breath. Yonomi took off her mask and placed it on the gravelly ground by the stream and ran a hand through her self-cut silver hair.

"How come your hair is that color?" Naruto asked. "And why's it so short? And how come you didn't show your face earlier? You're pretty."

"Because my father had this hair color," Yonomi said. "I cut it myself; so it wouldn't get in the way when I fight," she ignored the last question. "Take off your shirt and shorts."

Sasuke grudgingly followed orders and neatly folded his clothes next to her mask. Naruto kicked off his shoes and shorts and threw his shirt on the ground. The blonde was staring at Yonomi.

Yonomi stood on the water's surface with her hands in her pockets nonchalantly. "If you two were wondering why I decided to teach you two how to swim, it's because of this. This is a technique called water walking. It requires you to have delicate and absolute chakra control. But before you can do this, I thought it was a good idea to make sure you two aren't going to drown when you fall in your first hundred times."

"Why are you bothering?" Naruto suddenly asked quietly, looking at his feet. "You're not our mom or anything. You shouldn't have to care."

Yonomi almost felt badly. A flood of legal and code conduct jargon drowned out any notion of emotional reasons for the two. "Protecting you was in my mission orders. Hokage-sama did not specify for how long I will have to protect you, whether it be from when we left home to when you get back or until you graduate to become Genin. As a result, I took the safe option and decided to teach you two the skills to be able to protect yourself in case I'm not around," Yonomi said. _Not around anymore, to be exact._

"Alright, get in the water and I'll hold your hands while you kick as hard as you can," Yonomi said as the two waded into the water and grasped her hand with two for dear life. Naruto's uncut nails dug into her wrist while Sasuke's clean hands simply cut off circulation. "I promise I won't let go," she said offhandedly. It worked; the two relaxed slightly. Then, they remembered they were right next to one another and glared harshly into black and blue eyes.

"Bring it on!" Naruto growled as Sasuke grunted and waves of water began to shoot up violently. The water began to case currents underneath Yonomi and she sweatdropped. "You know, maybe you shouldn't be using chakra when you do this."  
Neither boy was listening in the slightest. After a good three hours of them trying to one-up the other with their kicking prowess, she stopped them and ordered them to the soil. Her clothes were drenched in water and her hair dripped onto her neck and a sudden gust of wind made her freezing. She pumped chakra to stave off shivering and looked at the two.

"Why'd we have to stop now?" Naruto asked. "Oh, is it because Sasuke is all weak and you had to stop for him? Well, he can sit here and you can just train me!"

"If there's anyone who's weak, it's you!" Sasuke growled. Then he turned, to Yonomi's horror, to her and demanded, "I'm way stronger than him!"

"Stop fighting and eat," Yonomi handed them bento and chopsticks. She looked up to about five or six flocks of birds fleeing the forest a mile or so away. She discreetly created a clone and the clone and she disappeared. The original Yonomi pulled out her own bento and began to eat along with her 'sons'.

The day was more or less uneventful with Sasuke and Naruto practicing their kicking and strengthening their leg muscles until dusk. Yonomi expertly evaded their complaints of it being boring and how they should (particularly Naruto) learn how to do that water standing thing by simply letting go a few times.

* * *

 _I hate sleeping._

Yonomi sat on the roof of the inn, staring out at the endless miles of forest and felt strangely comforted when she couldn't see the glow of Konoha at all. Her clone landed next to her and dispersed in a puff of smoke. Yonomi held the smooth photo in her hand and refused to look at it.

 _Because I'll see you._

The training, she thought, with Naruto and Sasuke was going well. The two were competitive and it slowed their progress a bit with their petty arguments and stupid beliefs that one of them was getting the lead and that, for the love of Kami, was a sin far beyond wasted tomatoes or spilled ramen. She laughed when she thought of their harsh words and knew, deep down, they might have a tiny thread of friendship. She understood; the two were orphans and were common topics of notice by the villagers, but for the wrong reasons.

 _You never came._

Yonomi gazed up at the moon after getting tired of the forest and admired its gleaming white color and envied its ability to be so detached. She loved Konoha, but she hated it: Konoha hated having wasted potential and she never wanted to be a ninja but there she was, in the Academy, wearing a hitai-ate, and killing Iwa shinobi at the age of fifteen. She knew she had nothing to complain about in that respect, though; there was a four-year-old fighting somewhere. Yonomi had met the boy once, the boy being Uchiha Itachi. He was a kind soul as a young Genin and absolutely hated his profession but being the first son of the clan head had taken away any other choice he had. She didn't know him personally, almost no one did, but if he'd been reborn in another life she supposed he'd be a humble farmer with a simple life and predictable outcomes and obstacles, like drought or flooding.

 _But you were already dead, weren't you?_

Yonomi's clone had relayed some interesting information: a group of Kumo Genin were apprehending some nuke nin. Yonomi saw a burst of orange flames presently erupt from the forest a mile away. She knew that there was a camp of about three Kumo Genin teams and had only seen one of them. They weren't anything special in terms of skill but if they had a stroke of luck in a few months when the Chuunin Exams rolled around for them they could survive. Maybe not be promoted but they could live.

 _And you let my son die._

"Summoning Technique," she bit her thumb and pressed her palm down. The sealing marks extended from her hand on the roof and a tabby cat with green eyes smiled at her. "Yes?"

"I'm going to take a walk. Watch the kids for me," Yonomi said as she landed on the ground silently.

"Kids?" the cat landed on her shoulder a moment later. Then it gasped with wide eyes. Yonomi shook her head. "I have mission orders. They'll smell like Konoha in the top floor. You'll find them, along with my stuff. Go on," the cat nodded and quickly raced up the wall and disappeared into a room.

Yonomi pulled on a navy blue jacket and walked over to where the flames had erupted. She walked alongside the bank of the stream with slow steps and with her hood on and her hands deep in her pockets. She shoved down every ounce of chakra until she was a mere civilian by any sensors standards. Kumo had excellent sensors: the best in the Elemental Nations. The water pooled upstream to create a wide lake that was perhaps five feet at its deepest.

There was a boy around five or six sending electrical currents into the water.

Yonomi acted girlish for once and hid behind a tree lady-like with her body pressed against the rough bark and her slender fingers gripping the side as she peeked over to look at the boy, only twenty feet away. The boy stopped and his posture grew annoyed. She would've laughed at any other time; a boy as young as he had the annoyed posture of a hormonal teenager as if their mother had just planted a kiss on their cheek and handed them their lunch and said that they put in a note and how they loved them with all his friends around, smirking. But the boy looked empty and didn't even have his hitai-ate on his forehead and reminded her of the day when her family had shrunk from seven to four and then three and then two.

"I know you're there," the boy said.

"Well, aren't you sharp," Yonomi praised gently.

"Who are you?" the boy had his hand near his pocket where she supposed he had a kunai.

"I'm a farmer. The more you electrocute this lake means more algae and bacteria are going to die and my crops won't get the necessary nutrients and then Kumo will suffer from a shortage of certain crops," Yonomi said. "So, what brings Kumo to the Land of Fire? Aren't you a little far from Kumogakure?"

"What's it to a mere farmer? Not like you farmer folk want to get involved in shinobi business," the boy was cautious.

"Nothing," Yonomi said. "I'm just glad Kumo has some promising shinobi that may give Konoha a run for its money in the Chuunin Exams. I try to go as often as I can to bet and gain a little more money to plant and to buy some tea leaves from the north."

The boy snorted at her response and went through the seals again to channel more lightning into the water. Yonomi looked at his stance and at the jutsu he was performing and found multiple flaws but didn't say anything. "Make sure to pick me when I go into the Exams. I can assure you that you'll get your money's worth and can buy all the tea you want. You should eat more; you look like a stick. I can count your ribs through that jacket of yours."

Yonomi looked at her chest. "I suppose. But as a farmer I can't eat much of my crops; they're cash crops. You shinobi have to eat, don't you? The same can be said for you, you know. You should eat more so you can stand beside whomever you want to stand beside and protect whomever you want to protect."

"What?" his voice was light. Then he whirled and stormed up to her. "Who the hell do you think you are?! A mere peasant farmer has no right to tell me how to live my life! You don't even know me!"

She nodded with her eyes closed and her hand gripping the photo. "I'm sorry. I'll go home now."

The boy hissed and went back to his lightning and wondering why he couldn't do it right. Yonomi ran back to the inn and slid against the door of the inn and covered her mouth with her hand and her ears filled with the sound of Sasuke's fitful sleep and Naruto's soft cries as he saw villagers beat him within an inch of his life.

* * *

"You swim with your arms like this," Yonomi demonstrated as her arms extended at intervals with her fingers locked together and reaching forward as if reaching for something beneath her but only less than a 90 degree angle before they went back under and the other arm completed a stroke and so on. "And you want to kick at the same time. Make sure to keep your fingers together to create a smaller oar to propel yourself forward."

Yonomi held an ankle in each hand and watched their form. The two kept trying to extend their bodies even farther than the other and huge splashes of water drenched her again. She wrung out the side of her shirt when noon came again and tuned out their arguments until Sasuke threw Naruto into the water in a fit of anger. Naruto flailed for a moment, moving his arms and legs at random and was really starting to drown.

"Swim!" Yonomi prompted as she stood on the banks.

Naruto seemed lost for a moment before he started to push himself and with his messy form that needed some more fine tuning and kicked violently and began to swim. His arms reached out at equal intervals but his fingers were spread out wide, slowing him down. Sasuke jumped back into the water and began to swim as well, muttering something about 'like hell I'll lose to that idiot'. The two began to swim alongside one another and Yonomi pulled out a bag of local dried persimmons and watched in amusement as the two struggled to drown one another and swim upstream like salmon during spawning season.

The week came to a close with the two being somewhat proficient in simple freestyle, and breaststroke. Sasuke was far better at the backstroke than Naruto but Naruto proved better at the butterfly than his Uchiha counterpart. Naruto couldn't float in place while moving his arms to keep afloat vertically like Sasuke but he could float on his back and not sink.

Night fell again and Yonomi didn't sleep. In the moonlight, she stepped into the shower and froze herself with cold water and allowed the silver to drown with the 60 ryo amount of dye and stared into her son's black circles in the mirror and trimmed her hair to be straight at the back with a clone.

She leaned against the wall, staring at the two boys she was in charge of. Naruto began to whimper in his sleep again and she brushed back his blonde hair with icy slender fingers.

 _It's alright. It's just a dream. Kaa-san is right here and she'll always protect you. Her son looked up at her and wiped his tears away. 'S-sensei said that shinobi can't show emotions yesterday. Especially not the guys and the girls only cry when something really bad happens, but we can't cry at all because we're supposed to be strong. I-is it okay? Should I just never cry, even when I'm scared? Is that how Tou-san got promoted?' More tears spilled from her son's eyes and his silver highlights, her highlights, shone in the moonlight as he sat up wiping away his tears. 'You can always cry. The fact you have emotions, that you care about something, makes you strong. People who don't cry are weak because they're all alone and don't have anyone that cares about them or don't have anything that makes them strong. Kaa-san cares about you; you know that. But people say that emotions cloud the mind and judgment and cause people to make 'wrong' decisions. This…this is often not the case. When you're really scared, you should think of how to get away from what makes you scared or fight back. Tou-san didn't get promoted because he didn't cry. Believe it or not, your father cried many times. Now, he's the department head. You see, crying is just a part of life. Everyone cries but that has nothing to do with how strong or weak they are. Your sensei is just following the rules written by old guys who wanted to look cool.' Yonomi pushed back a few strands of his black and silver-highlighted hair._

' _What was your dream about?'_

Yonomi counted the amount of money sealed inside the scroll Sarutobi had given her. It was certainly enough to support them for four or five years. She would've normally unsealed all of it and then swim in all of the bills and coins but the bath was too small to fit in all of the money. She had enough clothes for the three of them to last two months without laundry. Aside from that, soaps, toiletries, and food came out of her own pocket, or rather, the scroll. The last thing she remembered before collapsing on the floor out of exhaustion was that she needed to get a job and how she completely forgot about Naruto's project.


	3. Son

Try as You Might ~ Chapter 3 ~ Son

* * *

Sasuke pulled on his hood and took one last look at the two sleeping forms of Naruto and Yonomi. He turned back and began to walk back towards Konoha. Above him, owls hooted softly and his footsteps crunched with gravel under his feet. He kept his breathing silent and checked every so often for signatures but thankfully didn't sense any.

"Where do you think you're going?" a voice asked softly.

Sasuke brought out a kunai and his frown deepened. "Leave me alone or I'll kill you."

"Why?" came the short reply.

"Why?" Sasuke's mouth pulled back, baring his teeth and his black eyes gleamed the way her son's couldn't.

Yonomi looked at the boy carefully. "I understand how you feel."

"You know nothing about me! You understand nothing! Your real mission assignment was to keep me weak, wasn't it? To keep me stupid! Well, sorry Yonomi, because I'm going to go back to Konoha and become the strongest Uchiha to ever live!" Sasuke charged at Yonomi. "And you're in my way!"

Yonomi simply evaded with Genin-level speed to test him. He was quick for his age, almost as quick as another boy she knew. Almost. Sasuke's kunai skills were quite advanced, nearly nicking her a few times. She eventually grew tired of simply moving back and forth and caught his hand and ripped the kunai out of his grasp.

"Really, Sasuke. I do understand," Yonomi said.

"Yeah, you and that old geezer! I can see the pity in your eyes and I don't want any of it!" Sasuke hissed.

"Let me tell you something," Yonomi said. Sasuke was seething still but he knew he was outmatched and remained quiet. "Do you remember the boy you used to play with as a child? The boy who looked like an Uchiha, but had eyes and fingers and a facial shape like me?"

"Sugi?" Sasuke asked.

"Yes. I knew him from the day he was born to the night he died. I saw him taken and murdered right in front of me. The only regret that I have is that he died and I didn't," Yonomi said.

Sasuke stood shocked. Yonomi smiled at him. "My mission assignment is simply to protect you and Naruto. Iruka is a kind man but he is out of his depth when it comes to dealing with you and Naruto. You're too skilled for his class while Naruto needs more one-on-one time. To me, protecting you means keeping you safe, and to do that, the skills for you and Naruto to keep yourselves safe even when I'm not around are needed. You're impatient, but you'll have to wait. I promise I'll teach you."

"How can I trust you?" Sasuke demanded.

"I can't force you to trust me, but Uchiha Shisui and I used to be close. Maybe my connection to Sugi can help strengthen my word, but that's all I have," she said.

Sasuke turned and walked back. Yonomi sighed. _Uchiha are so complicated…why couldn't he have just said 'okay'?_

* * *

"You two have had an introduction to taijutsu at the Academy, right?" Yonomi asked.

"Yeah," Naruto said halfheartedly, remembering how much he sucked. Then he brightened, "You're going to teach me?"

"And Sasuke," Yonomi said. "I'll train you two one on one, seeing how you two are at different levels."

"How do you know that?" Naruto asked.

"I was going to apply to become a Jounin sensei in a few years. I had to look into possible candidates," Yonomi said. "Besides, that's not important," a clone appeared next to her. "Sasuke, come with me," Sasuke followed the clone into a dark wooded area, a more advanced area with dark shadows and more difficult terrain to work with.

Naruto looked at the original, "Can't you just teach me that? I don't like taijutsu."

"No," Yonomi said. "If you want to be trained, you follow my rules and my schedule. Ne?"  
Naruto grumbled before being slowly attacked by Yonomi, just to give him a feel of future taijutsu would be like. Every so often, she chimed in with 'Spread your feet apart more' or 'Put your hands closer together' or 'Always expect an attack from anywhere'. Before he knew it, the sun was gone to leave stars up in the sky. Yonomi laid down on the ground and pointed up at the sky. "That one looks like the Uzumaki crest—" Yonomi stopped, hoping Naruto hadn't heard.

"Crest?" Naruto tentatively asked. "Uzumaki crest?"

Yonomi silently kicked herself. "Yes. There was a clan called the Uzumaki."

"Really?" Naruto asked excitedly. "Where are they?"

Yonomi sighed loudly. "During the Second war, because of their sealing skills, the Uzumaki were obliterated and its refugees remain scattered across the shinobi world. It's not much of a clan anymore, just a name and a legacy."

"Oh," Naruto said.

That night, Naruto had a dream.

 _'Help!' was all Naruto could think as the blows rained down on him. The villagers screamed out how he was a demon and then beat him even harder, saying how he'd killed their family. Naruto hadn't ever killed anyone._

 _"Hey," a low voice growled._

 _The crowd stopped, including Naruto, and looked over. There were two people standing there to his defense. Naruto stood up and ran over in gratefulness and looked at their faces._

 _Both of them had Yonomi's face._

Naruto's eyes flew open and he saw Sasuke shaking in his sleep and Yonomi just watching him. Naruto got up and put a hand on Sasuke. Sasuke's hand flew at him and punched his face. The Uchiha boy wasn't even awake. Naruto didn't know what was wrong. He stood slack-jawed at Yonomi, who looked bitter and sad.

"What's wrong with him?" Naruto asked.

"He's having a nightmare," Yonomi had bags under her glassy eyes.

"Did you sleep at all?" Naruto asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I had a nightmare," Yonomi said.

"People say that if you talk your problems out, it helps. What happened in your dream?" Naruto felt important and his chest puffed out a little.

"It's a scary dream, Naruto. I don't want to scare you."

"I'm the great Uzumaki Naruto! Nothing scares me!" Naruto smirked.

Yonomi looked through him. "No, Naruto. This isn't the kind of scary you think. It wasn't fake. My dream was real."

"But still, what happened?" Naruto asked.

Yonomi shook her head. "Sorry, Naruto."

"Tell me!"

"Naruto!" Yonomi looked away. "Sorry. But, really. It's not something I want to talk about. Do you understand? If you're really curious, I'll tell you that it was the kind of dream when something really scary happens and you get hurt and there isn't anything you can do about it."

 _A scream exploded in the Uchiha compound. It reached the ears of Mikoto as she cut vegetables for that night's dinner and Fugaku's as he wondered why Sasuke wasn't home yet. Mikoto put the knife down, wiped her hands clean on her apron and stepped outside the house and looked out. It was perfectly silent and quiet._

 _"Fugaku, I'm going to check on Sugi-chan's family," Mikoto said._

 _"Why bother? That boy is sickening," Fugaku shot back._

 _Mikoto made a face and defied her husband for once and ran to the five-year-old's home about forty houses down. She tripped over an uneven tile and sprawled onto the ground with bloody knees, but she'd been a Jounin; she kept going without feeling a thing. She opened the door to the boy's home without preamble and ran into every room._

 _Her hands shook as she stood in front of the last room, the bedroom, to his parents' room. She sensed four chakra signatures and something flickered out of her vision when she burst in to see only a woman still bleeding out with her placenta in ribbons between her legs and blood covering her hands and face and kunai gripped so tightly in her hands that her knuckles were white and her face was frozen in horror. Tears cut lines into her bloody cheeks and gave her a reverse-Jiraiya look. The woman suddenly looked fatigued and dropped the kunai and looked straight through Mikoto._

 _It was Mikoto who screamed at the sight. She'd helped deliver babies before and she'd seen women die before but the woman who'd married perhaps the most important Uchiha was truly going to die right here and right now and Mikoto had been best friends with the young woman's sensei and Mikoto couldn't stop screaming. She saw two midwives dead on the floor and pushed in a corner like rag dolls._

 _"Where's…Sugi…and Yukari…?" the woman croaked. "Tell Itachi…to bring them back to me. He took their bodies and their souls and their laughter from me!" the woman was growing weaker with the passing second, pushing all her energy into speaking and giving her last words to another woman who was going to die tonight too._

 _"Itachi?" Mikoto whispered as she knelt and held the woman's hand, more out of her own comfort than the young woman's._

 _"Yeah. He came and he killed and he took. He's a good boy, you know. You're lucky to have such a good boy," the woman said._

 _"My son…killed Sugi?" Mikoto slapped a hand over her mouth as if just saying it would bring death to them faster than it was going to anyway. "Who's Yukari?"_

 _"Don't you remember?" the woman smiled ghostly. "I was pregnant for six months, two weeks, four days, and thirteen hours with another child. You must've seen me, walking around and getting hurt and sitting as I watched the wall go up."_

 _Mikoto had been so busy with the coup that she hadn't seen the woman at all and she was just a little too late. She let out a yelp as the woman died right in front of her and she ran out of the house, screaming for anyone to help. She couldn't sense anyone still alive in the compound and she began to scream bloody murder and ran to her house and ran to Fugaku to hold him tight because she was so scared and she burst into the bedroom she shared with the coup's leader and saw her husband kneeling in front of an ANBU._

 _"F-fugaku…" Mikoto whispered, wilting._

 _"You're a good boy, Itachi. Even though our ideals differ, I'm proud of you," Fugaku said._

 _Mikoto threw herself into Fugaku's arms and shakily told him what had just happened, not caring about how her son was poised to kill them both. "Sugi-chan and his mom and his sister and all the midwives died! They were killed and then when I tried to get help, no one was alive anymore! What's going on?!"_

 _"The coup is being stopped. There will be no war and Konoha will be in peace," Fugaku smiled at his wife. "I love you, Miko-chan," it was the name he called her during their Academy days. She sobbed into his chest, "I love you, Itachi. Protect Sasuke."_

* * *

"May I report?"

"Go on."

"Approximately seventy-five percent of the village is taken by the enemy," Kakashi said, kneeling in front of the Hokage. "The enemy appears to consist of Kumo and Iwa. They seemed to have some kind of plan to work together but it's slowly falling apart. However, not fast enough for us to take advantage of that. Half of our shinobi are dead and a few hundred are wounded," Kakashi sighed. "I'm afraid if a miracle doesn't appear on our doorstep, we'd have a very tough time defeating them."

Sarutobi blew out a smoke ring and wondered if he'd made a wrong decision. It weighed in his stomach heavily and nausea was beginning to set in.

"Naruto is…" Kakashi trailed off.

"With Sasuke and their guardian, far away from here," Sarutobi said. He turned to the man barely reaching drinking age and said, "Get some rest, Kakashi. You'll need it tomorrow."

Kakashi stood and just before he opened the door he said, "Are Naruto and Sasuke safe with this person?"

"Yes," Sarutobi said.

Kakashi nodded before leaving to sleep with the group of Jounin that slowly gets smaller and smaller, ever since his sister died. _No, don't think about that._ But he couldn't help it. Kakashi's throat tightened as he laid down somewhere where there was a fire and people were trying to relax with mindless dice and cards and he heard the terrified cry of a civilian woman having a man, whose mind was overrun with blood and the memories of all the people who'd died around him, force himself upon her. Unsurprisingly (this kind of thing, with shinobi hauling non-kunoichi women from nearby towns to ease tensions within ranks) Kakashi was able to fall asleep quite easily. It had happened too often during the war and it got to the point where his sister would simply pity the girls and offer them some rare sweets rather than intervene with her fellow Konoha shinobi.

Kakashi had a dreamless sleep (thankfully, so he wouldn't see her and her death) for two or three hours before waking up to see Iwa forces advancing. Someone handed him a steamed bun filled with something tasteless and he swallowed quickly before running his kunai through some Kumo nin like butter. Blood sprayed on the Chuunin behind him and Kakashi felt no remorse as a group of Jounin sprang towards him with earth jutsu. Kakashi's hands where engulfed in lightning again and he kicked them down with his legs and quickly turned on a heel and ran one hand through one body and threw the dead shinobi on his comrade and electrocuted his female comrade with a quick flick of the wrist after tripping her. The last Jounin fell to the Chuunin's genjutsu.

* * *

"You," Yonomi looked at Naruto with envy, "Have quite a bit of chakra. The chakra control exercises that are taught in the Academy are for children who have only a half of your chakra reserves. You, in time, will have more chakra than I. However," Yonomi said, seeing Naruto grin and lose focus in his own superiority, "Because of your large reserves, you struggle with controlling all your chakra more than your peers."

"Do I have more than Sasuke?" Naruto asked.

"You two are about the same," Yonomi said quickly. "Anyway, this is the reason you're unable to perform any jutsu. You can't control enough chakra to make the jutsu happen. You need more advanced chakra controlling exercises."

Naruto skipped around her, grinning like a loon. "I'm so great, aren't I?"

"Not if you can't perform the jutsu that Sasuke has already mastered. He's even got a few elemental jutsu while you can't do anything. Don't get ahead of yourself," Yonomi warned. "Now, I want you to practice controlling your chakra with a jutsu. This jutsu is called the Kage Bunshin Technique. This creates more clones that aren't illusions. If you can properly divvy up your chakra to create the desired number of clones then it'll be impossible to tell apart the real and fake Naruto unless I give you a poke."

Naruto's eyes shone with excitement. Yonomi held up her hands, "Watch carefully. This is the only seal for it. I want you to make me ten clones," she held up her hands in a 'plus' sign and ten Yonomi appeared around her. "Like this."

Naruto immediately set to work with the jutsu. Yonomi sat in the shade, watching him with a swell of pride.

"I take it you're the one Sarutobi-sensei entrusted the two brats to, right?"

Yonomi stiffened. "Hai. Shouldn't you be in Konoha? I'm sure you've heard how bloody it is."

There was a pause. "Are you alright? I mean, I heard about…"

Yonomi ran a hand through her brown dye that was quickly being eaten up by her original hair color. _I guess dying just doesn't work on silver hair, then._ "Yes. Don't worry about me. You should be worrying about Konoha and going back. I don't want anyone else to die."

Jiraiya shrugged from the opposite side of the tree. "I know. But this is interesting, with you and Sasuke and Naruto. I was just worried about my godson."

Yonomi had the urge to laugh. "Well, there's no reason for you not to take Naruto off my hands now."

"He seems to have grown attached to you," Jiraiya reasoned.

"I get it. You're just not used to kids despite having practically raised his dad," Yonomi rolled her eyes. "Jiraiya-sama, really, you should return to Konoha. They need you. Kakashi needs you."

Jiraiya grumbled and moved to face her. Yonomi looked up at him. "Be careful. That Kumo group was looking for shinobi. One of them is just a kid younger than Naruto and already looks like the second coming of you or Kakashi. If they find out that you're a shinobi and find Naruto and Sasuke, you'd better be prepared to give it your all."

"I didn't survive the war for nothing, Jiraiya-sama. I didn't survive anything up until now to be beaten by some Kumo worms," Yonomi snorted. Jiraiya narrowed his eyes slightly before walking off. "I'll watch out for Kakashi, Yonomi-chan."

* * *

Sasuke woke up in cold sweat, having another nightmare of the massacre. It had only been a month and a half, almost. He felt sick and promptly vomited on the bed sheets at the new inn they were staying at for a few days. He held his head in pain and his heartbeat pounded in his ears and he shivered. Sugi's face was still very clear in his mind.

The sound of retching made him look up towards the bathroom. He pulled off the soiled blankets and balled them up and put them in the corner before knocking on the door. A small gasp sounded like a scream in the silence of night and Sasuke frowned. "Yonomi?"

Yonomi wiped her mouth and tears from her eyes and lied, mostly to herself, again, "I'm fine."

 _You let my son die, dear husband. I shouldn't feel any remorse for your death. I shouldn't care about you. Then why…_

"I think I'm sick," Sasuke felt nausea wash over him again before he dropped to his knees and the room looked like the ceilings were changing their height, like shaking a cube of jelly around. He closed his eyes and moaned silently.

Yonomi washed her face with icy cold running water and placed a hand on Sasuke's forehead after slipping out of the bathroom and shutting the door she'd slid on to the floor and traced over the scars that were slowly fading away. Nothing to prove that those old women had truly hated her.

"You're burning up," Yonomi said. She wrung a washcloth in cold water and placed it on Sasuke's forehead and he sighed in the cooling relief that soothed his fever.

Yonomi rubbed her eyes but couldn't sleep. It was too terrifying to sleep, anyway. Sasuke looked at her for a while before he started to talk at random. It was word vomit but Yonomi listened to him like she would her own child. She ran a hand through his thick black locks, thicker than her son's had been, and sighed in discontent.

"I…" Sasuke whispered, feeling weaker and weaker. Yonomi waited patiently. "Itachi…is going to kill me…please…Yonomi protect…me," Sasuke wheezed before being caught up in a coughing fit.

"It's okay. Itachi's not going to come after you while I'm here. I'll teach you to be strong and then you can get your revenge. Right?" Yonomi's eyes glinted with something Sasuke didn't understand.

"How…" Sasuke looked confused.

Yonomi leaned close to him, "Promise not to tell anyone."

Sasuke nodded. "I promise."

Yonomi's tears hit his shirt like huge raindrops, "Sugi was my son."

Sasuke, despite his state, understood. "So Itachi killed him. And you were there that night?"  
"Yes. I saw Sugi try to get away before he was murdered right in front of me. I'm ashamed to admit that I can't let it go. As a shinobi, I have to get over it, but for some reason, I can't," Yonomi said. _Even though Itachi had good reason for doing what he did. But Sugi was innocent. But Sugi would've turned out like Sasuke and would've suffered and Itachi couldn't let Shisui go through that suffering, the knowledge that his son was all alone and suffering and angry. But everything is okay, I suppose. Because I'm still alive and I'll die before I tell a living soul about the coup._

"He was my friend," Sasuke said. "He was smart."

"I know," Yonomi's chest felt tight.

"And skilled," Sasuke continued.

"I know," Yonomi choked.

"And my father didn't like him because he wasn't a full Uchiha," Sasuke frowned at that. "That's mean. It isn't fair; it wasn't his fault."

"I know," Yonomi covered her mouth as a sob made its way out and she vomited again in the toilet after just making it to the bathroom. Her body shook and she felt so cold and looked over at Kushina's son and hoped that he would stay bright and warm and happy, even if she was dying on the inside.


	4. Wounds

Try as You Might ~ Chapter 4 ~ Wounds

* * *

Sasuke shook Naruto's shoulder roughly. "Hey!" Naruto simply winced in his sleep and shivered. Sasuke scowled and shook him even harder, only to make Naruto whimper and say something that sounded suspiciously like 'save me Yonomi…' Sasuke let out a sigh and took both of Naruto's shoulders and shook him as hard as he could. Naruto snapped awake with a jolt and a yelp.

"What do you want?" Naruto demanded defensively.

"Yonomi's not here," Sasuke informed him of the obvious. Naruto looked around, not believing Sasuke.

"What did you do to her?" Naruto growled. "I know you did something!"

"Me?! If anything, I bet you scared her off with those dreams of yours! Now get up and help me find her," Sasuke ordered.

"Like you have the right to tell me what to do," Naruto snorted but got up anyway. Sasuke grabbed the extra room key and followed Naruto out.

Only, there were twenty Naruto filling up the hallway. Sasuke blinked in shock, "I thought you couldn't do the clone jutsu," then Sasuke looked at all of them carefully, "They're not illusions," but it was more of a question than an observation. Naruto grinned at Sasuke like he'd just won the lottery.

"They're _Kage_ Bunshin. Yonomi-chan taught me," Naruto looked at him with a sneer.

Sasuke glared hatefully at his 'brother' before storming off and yelling over his shoulder, "Meet me back here at noon and don't make me find you."

Naruto smirked and his clones scattered across each floor and around the building. The original was in a tree, peering out into the distance. He was about to jump off to look somewhere else but something exploded behind him. He wasn't close enough to feel the blast, but close enough to feel the shockwave. Then, mist expanded outwards and Naruto tightly gripped the tree; his visibility had been reduced to zero. He couldn't even make out his own hand in front of his face. Naruto put his hand out, feeling the atmosphere change slightly and felt heat. Before he could gasp, the mist turned into flames, filling up all of the air. Naruto flew into the air, screaming. He landed on the ground somewhere else and blindly ran to the gurgle of a stream and soaked his charred clothes in the water. His skin hurt and when he looked, no sound came out of his mouth and his eyes were mere specks. His entire hand was covered in blood and he didn't even want to look at his foot or his head. He could smell the strange, sweet burning smell and didn't ever want to know why.

"Oh Kami!" a man on the other side of the stream saw a young blonde boy's lips quiver and tears run down his face, his clothes singed, his blonde hair black in the back, and covered in blood. The boy looked up at the sound but was unconscious before he even saw the man. The man ran over and gathered the boy and ran to get help.

Elsewhere, Sasuke looked towards the forest as mist rolled in after the ground rumbled with a mild earthquake and then flames devoured the trees as far as the mist went and then more since the trees were so old and widespread and tall and thick. Sasuke sensed someone behind him and saw a man with long ink-black hair, yellow eyes, and deathly pale skin. The Uchiha instinctively took a step back and the man wearing a black cloak and red clouds simply chuckled as if Sasuke were some kind of clumsy duckling.

"How cute," the man mumbled before saying, "Would you happen to know where the Kyuubi is?"

Sasuke's mouth felt dry. "What?"

"The Kyuubi. It's sealed inside your friend. We want him," Orochimaru supplied. _Really, this boy is such a waste. Why Itachi-kun spared him is beyond me. He's not nearly as smart or skilled as his brother._

"Naruto?" Sasuke squeaked. "Kyuubi?" then confused anger set in, "What the hell are you talking about? The Yondaime killed the Kyuubi!"

"Bijuu can't be killed, Sasuke-kun. They can only be put away in a neat package and sealed away. Naruto just happens to be that package, or container if you will," Orochimaru said.

"He's not…but…" Sasuke trailed off, his eyes wide with fear and shock. _So that's why everyone…_ Sasuke clenched his jaw. _If he gets taken, Yonomi's going to go after him. That'll be a burden and a waste of time. Not that I care about that idiot, but the two of us are Yonomi's responsibility. I don't want to be responsible for her having to find him. This guy…he's not going to have Naruto._

"He's not here," Sasuke said angrily.

"Oh, I know that. I found all of his clones," Orochimaru said matter-of-factly. "Oh, I see. You two split up," Orochimaru turned and walked towards where the flames came from and disappeared into the tree line. Sasuke blinked before gasping and falling in his knees. He hadn't breathed the entire time. The man had had an aura that clamped down on him and he felt like his life was flashing before his eyes and he was reliving the same fear of death as nearly two months ago when he became the last Uchiha.

Orochimaru leaned on a tree, observing the two panting Jounin and ex-ANBU. Yonomi had her eyes on Itachi's feet and lightning crackled around her: a more advanced form of Kakashi's hand-only Chidori. Only, hers was silent. Orochimaru smiled at the jutsu; every Iwa shinobi had been told that as the eldest daughter of the White Fang, she was to be either avoided or taken on with at least twenty others. That is, a flee-on-sight order, but less severe than Minato's. Kakashi later earned the same status as his sister. Orochimaru could see the pain in her eyes, wondering if fighting the teen who'd taken her family away was getting to her. They blurred for a few minutes; taijutsu. Despite being low on chakra (Orochimaru knew it was an inherent Hatake trait to have somewhat low chakra reserves), she managed to keep up and avoid his blood red eyes. They stopped and Yonomi was on her hands and knees and her back was soaked in blood but Orochimaru couldn't see any cuts into the fabric of her shirt. Itachi flickered and grabbed her chin and forced her to look into his eyes. The lightning disappeared instantly. The color drained from her face and horror spread like the flames earlier and she let out a bloodcurdling scream and collapsed on the ground with her eyes open and staring up blankly into the clouds and her body, growing thinner and thinner (Orochimaru could count her ribs easily) and could only cry. Itachi stood and his eyes faded to black and he whispered something to her and she flinched so hard that she let out another fearful scream and scuttled away, bags under her eyes growing darker and her eyes glazing over and her chakra draining. She clenched her fists and then her silent, straight lightning made contact with the Uchiha's body and he went flying into a tree. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell into the unforgiving darkness of unconsciousness, the genjutsu Itachi had shown her still weighing much too heavily on her mind.

Itachi convulsed and twitched slightly as he stood, his face just barely hinting at the excruciating pain she'd induced. He dropped to one knee, panting hard and each breath feeling like he was inhaling less and less until he was gasping for air. Itachi flared his chakra and it helped only slightly. He glared at Orochimaru's chuckle and pulled out senbon she'd managed to be so quick as to stab him with and Itachi dusted off the ash from the epicenter of the new clearing they'd created with a concoction of bombs, seals, fire jutsu, water jutsu, and something else Itachi could only speculate that she'd created herself. It was something that reminded him of the war, something of the same caliber of things that only truly terrifying murderous shinobi carried in the war. He was too sickened by the thought that he cast it away and welcomed the distracting pain and spasms from her lightning.

"I haven't been able to find him," Orochimaru said.

Itachi donned his poker face, "He's just an Academy student. Even with Yonomi-senpai's training and guidance, he does not have the inherent skill to excel with leaps and bounds. At least, not now."

"So we should go after him when, say, he's a Genin?" Orochimaru's lips curled up.

Itachi gave a nod and the two started back to where they'd come from.

Sasuke had run in the opposite direction of Orochimaru and was screaming out Yonomi's name, "Yonomi!"

Fear was beginning to set in. The fear of abandonment. "YONOMI!"

Onlookers stared at the frightened child race through the streets, screaming. Sasuke kept running until he ran into a woman with white hair and tanned skin. He fell on his butt hard and stared in shock. The man next to her was holding a baby and handed it to the woman and knelt in front of the Uchiha boy. Sasuke saw a man with kind dark eyes and straight black hair tied in the back and two locks in the front. He smiled kindly at Sasuke and he felt sick.  
"Get away from me!" Sasuke scooted back.

The woman produced a picture, clearly of a younger version of herself and of another female. "Is this the Yonomi you're looking for?"

Sasuke looked despite himself and nodded with suspicion, confusion, fear and the urge to run. The woman said her name and the man said his name but Sasuke wasn't listening and the woman said something about, "We'll help you find her."

The woman produced multiple Kage Bunshin along with the man and they scattered at speeds too high to be ordinary civilians. "You're shinobi," Sasuke said in a flat tone.

"Yes," the woman said. "We're from Kusagakure no Sato."

Sasuke allowed their conversation to die off. Evening was beginning to set in and he impatiently sat on the grass beside the woman and her baby and tried not to think about anything.

That was, until the man came back with a bloody figure in his arms. He set the figure down on the grass and without hesitation stripped the woman down to only her underwear and began to treat her more serious wounds, like the terrible one on her back and the woman, just as deftly, began to nurse her extensive burns. Sasuke was shocked into silence. "What happened to her? Where did you find her?"

"She was in the edge of a clearing. She must've fought someone strong enough to hurt her this badly. I've never seen her this badly wounded," the man said as he bandaged up her back, winding the white gauze around her torso.

"Neither have I," the woman said as she covered up Yonomi's burns with clean gauze.

Sasuke felt a wave of helplessness, "What's going to happen to her?"

"We'll stay with you until she wakes up," the man said. "But it looks like her chakra system is shot. Like some kind of horrible genjutsu."

* * *

A week later, Yonomi saw the moon in the sky and couldn't move. She lifted her hand and saw only white bandages and before she could question herself, she saw the screams and blood and her son's throat cleanly slit and Mikoto die and Fugaku die and all the old ladies who hated her die.

Then, she saw her own death. Her home had exploded after a woman who looked terrified of _her_ ran out. Yonomi felt her hand reach out for help because _I don't want to die!_ but no one came to help. Tears pricked her eyes but she shut them tight and pushed away the face of her son and her son's father and the saddened one of her brother's.

 _I'm so sorry, Kakashi._

Yonomi struggled to reach for the glass of water next to her bed and as she gripped it, her hand exploded in pain and she dropped it. The glass shattered loudly and everyone around her woke up.

"You're awake," a woman with white hair and purple eyes and tan skin was shocked. Too shocked. Yonomi didn't know what her own face looked like; she could feel the bandages sticking to her skin, but she supposed she looked almost as bad as when she'd found out Sugi had died. Murdered.

"Yonomi!" Sasuke said. His voice was shaken and he looked scared and Yonomi opened her mouth to say something but no words came out. Only a sob like a five-year-old and she felt her stomach and throat hurt from the sobs that racked her burned and bruised and cut body and blood filled her vision and the scream of her son was all she could hear _and there was nothing she could do about it._

"Yonomi-chan, what…" the woman held Yonomi's burned hand gently, only for Yonomi to flinch back and then look guilty about it. The Hatake composed herself and breathed out shakily, her eyes still red and her body hurting a lot more than when she'd woken up, "I'm fine."

Muku crossed his arms, "We're Jounin. We can tell when you're lying," then his voice softened slightly, "What happened? You were about to die when I found you."

Yonomi saw Itachi's smiling face, a mere toddler, as Shisui held up his cousin proudly to his Genin team like some kind of prize. Then Itachi killed Sugi. "Nothing."

"Yonomi," Ryuuzetsu said, exasperated. "Come on. Muku and I are your friends. Besides, you owe us for making sure you didn't die. Or Sasuke-kun here would've been devasted."

"Really, Ryuuzetsu," Yonomi had the nerve to crack a smile, "I'm fine. Just a scratch."

"Yonomi, Naruto's missing. I couldn't find him anywhere," Sasuke blurted out.

"What?" Yonomi's eyes widened. She pushed herself off of the bed even though her body feeling like it was on fire.

"Hey! Don't move," Ryuuzetsu snapped. "You're still hurt."

Yonomi ignored the younger woman and bit her thumb and summoned a large cat. The cat looked at Yonomi with mild shock but Yonomi cut it off, "Take me to where Naruto is. Sasuke, you stay with Ryuuzetsu and Muku."

"Yes, Yonomi-sama," the cat lowered slightly to allow Yonomi to lay on her stomach on the cat's back and Ryuuzetsu grabbed her arm roughly, enough to elicit a wince from Yonomi, "Don't."

Yonomi glared, "Don't get in my way. Naruto and Sasuke are my priorities; they're my sons. I was entrusted with them and there's no way in hell I'm losing them," the cat jumped onto the windowsill with Yonomi tightly gripping its jet-black fur. "Watch Sasuke for me. Please."

Ryuuzetsu lunged for her friend, but the cat leapt off and bounded towards Naruto's scent.

A few minutes later and Yonomi was staring at a puddle of dried blood. She began to feel faint and before she could issue an order to pursue the scent, she fell unconscious, having pushed herself to the point where she could see blood spotting through the bandages on her hands and could feel her back singeing like she'd reopened a wound. The cat carried the woman back to the inn and Ryuuzetsu shook her head and rewrapped Yonomi in clean bandages.

 _You're not okay, Yonomi-chan. Something awful must've happened, right?_


	5. Kakashi

Try as You Might ~ Chapter 5 ~ Kakashi

* * *

Kakashi nearly passed out in relief when he recognized the man who'd just shoved him to the ground when a massive wall of fire was coming at him at a time when he was too exhausted to dodge properly. Kakashi was hauled up by someone and turned around to see Kurenai. She had blood all over her, matching her eyes. Kakashi muttered something that might've been a thank you, but everything seemed to melt into one big blob.

The funny thing was, genjutsu was the cleanest type of fighting. Ninjutsu involved crushing your opponents to bits and having their blood splatter everywhere. Taijutsu involved exactly the same thing: having their blood splatter everywhere. But genjutsu was just mind games. There wasn't supposed to be blood involved but Kakashi supposed her genjutsu was just that painful.

Not that he cared at all.

Kakashi took a swig from his canteen strapped to his side and popped his tenth soldier pill in the last hour. He saw the village, more than half of it crumbled to dust and ash and piles of nothing, and counted not by days, but how many times he'd either passed out from chakra exhaustion and how many times he'd vomited. A quick calculation revealed about two, maybe three, weeks had passed.

He hoped with the new arrival, albeit a bit late (well, a lot late), that Konoha would finally be able to breathe again. Someone placed a hand on the kneeling Jounin's shoulder and Kakashi knew who it was without even checking the signature. The smell of burning nicotine was enough. "Jiraiya-sama is quite something, huh?"

Kakashi nodded wearily. More wearily than he'd nodded during the war. But not as much as his sister's 'funeral'. Maybe the same amount as when his family had died. Not that he could remember, really. Kakashi closed his eyes and opened them at night and looked at Konoha again.

Konoha wasn't burning as much. He was the only Jounin sleeping on the ground, still. He rose to his feet and lazily ran a few kunai through a few people and blinked and found himself on top of the gates of Konoha, on the あ side, letting out torrents of water. He stopped when he stopped and found himself on the side of a building at some point later, looking at some shinobi with a smirk on her face and then standing over her body, mangled and bloody and stained red all over and she convulsed once before she really died and Kakashi let go of the lightning in his hand. It was loud and annoying. It wasn't elegant, it wasn't silent, it wasn't a silent protector, it wasn't heartbroken, and it certainly wasn't alive. Kakashi sighed, popped another soldier pill, had a bite of chewy candy that came in a small piece of paper and a drink of water and sliced up some more bodies until the afternoon sun made him retreat back into the safe zone of Konoha shinobi.

Kakashi let his guard drop when he saw Asuma nod in his direction. He took a seat next to his fellow Jounin and that's when the entire camp blew up.

* * *

"What the hell do you mean, 'some lady'?!" Yonomi grabbed the man's yukata and killer intent filled the small room.

"T-t-that's what I said! Some old lady claiming to be his great-grandmother or something just came and said something about some Kushina person and then talked to the kid and then left!" the man stammered.

"When?!" Yonomi shook him.

"A week ago," the man said.

Yonomi threw him to the side, grabbed Sasuke's hand and walked out, slamming their door hard enough to make the farming couple's house fall to the ground. Yonomi walked at a pace that Sasuke had to jog at to keep up and murder was in her eyes. Sasuke didn't understand. She was just like Sasuke; she had had family and then Itachi took it away. She was nothing like Naruto. She wasn't stupid, she was skilled, and she didn't even like ramen or sweets. "Why do you care anyway?"

"Because he's my son," Yonomi said.

"No he's not," Sasuke argued. "Sugi—"

"Yes," Yonomi gave him a hard look. "He is," Yonomi slowed slightly. _I hate to think this, but having Sasuke, an Uchiha, and Naruto, a stupid and heartwarming kid, as my 'sons' is like having Sugi here. Sandaime, I was wrong to defy you. Just don't die on me._

Sasuke remained quiet for the rest of her tracking down the trail of bright chakra (or so she said) down a single path until evening. When evening set in, it became painfully apparent that Naruto wasn't even close.

In other words, it was a ploy.

Yonomi's blood boiled. A tree splintered under the stress she was in and was charred black with silent lightning. Her hands were still somewhat bandaged up, something that she vaguely explained with the apparent fact that she healed slower than most people. She supposed it would take at most two or three months to fully heal from her burned hands and back. The cuts and various bruises on her body would take a month to fade away.

Yonomi had collected firewood and let Sasuke light it up with fire techniques. Yonomi laid on her blanket and gave Sasuke a sleeping bag she'd found sealed in the scroll after unfurling it long enough.

"Ne, Yonomi," Sasuke started.

"Hm?"

"Who attacked you?"

Yonomi looked at Sasuke with a strange glint. _I'll die before I tell a soul about the coup._ "Some nuke nin. Nothing to worry about."

"Did he have a long black cloak with red clouds on it?" Sasuke asked.

Yonomi turned fully to face the boy. "Sasuke, are you okay?"

"Wha, I mean, yeah. But," Sasuke didn't want to say it. He wouldn't admit it, but he was jealous of Naruto, "This guy with yellow eyes and really pale skin was asking where the Kyuubi was. The Kyuubi died and I told him so. Then the man said that the Kyuubi was Naruto. Is that…true?"

Yonomi looked up at the stars. _Kushina-sensei…_ "No. Naruto is Naruto and the Kyuubi is the Kyuubi. Two completely different beings."

"The man said something about sealing it inside something since it can't, apparently, he killed," Sasuke said.

"You shouldn't believe creepy old guys. He had black hair, right?" Yonomi asked nonchalantly.

"Yeah. How did you know?" Sasuke asked.

"Just a wild guess," she said before jumping onto a branch to watch out for any enemies.

* * *

Kakashi awoke on a pile of rubble. He stood and saw nothing but a grey haze around him. No more trees stood. No more buildings stood. Fires burned stupidly on things that were so charred that it didn't make any sense for them to keep burning. He dusted off his vest and coughed the ash and soot from his lungs and wanted nothing more than to see a familiar face.

A minor earthquake shook the ground and Kakashi didn't know it yet, but it was the last scream of anyone from another village. Kakashi made his way over to the Hokage tower and a sea of people were packed. People were on stretchers on the ground, moaning in pain. Their limbs lay next to them on a separate stretcher and Kakashi almost couldn't care. He looked outside the window of the Hokage's office after turning the knob and finding only Jiraiya being treated by a few elite medics on the floor.

It was a warzone, even if Iwa and Kumo had been driven out like pests by Konoha. It was like the Third War and Kakashi couldn't help but remember Kannabi Bridge and how he'd gotten Obito's sharingan. Kakashi stuffed his hands in his pockets, becoming less and less aware of his surroundings and not paying any attention on what the Sandaime was saying to him.

Kakashi recalled when the bomb went off. He hadn't been at the epicenter; some poor Chuunin had been. Their head popped off like a balloon's end being let go, flying this way and that way. The silence and white of the bomb was the second loudest thing he'd ever heard. The Copy Ninja felt the Sandaime grip his shoulder and that's when Kakashi decided to listen.

"Kakashi."

Sarutobi's voice was rough and demanding. Kakashi was not 100% but the shaken Genin in the room were none the wiser. Kakashi eye-smiled at his Hokage. "Yes?"

"You and these Genin fought the hardest on the front lines. Give me the report," Sarutobi said.

 _Where to start…_ Kakashi cleared his throat and didn't let either Genin talk at all. He was starting to hate whining brats, maybe because he was mimicking one himself. Oh well.

"Iwa and Kumo forces worked extremely well in the beginning, showing off numerous collaboration jutsu. However, as the attacks went on for the past month, it became clear that old wounds from the war kept them from aligning well. A few Iwa shinobi blew up their so-called allies and Kumo responded accordingly: they electrocuted dozens of Iwa camps along the eastern side of Konoha. At the time, Konoha forces were just 40% of what they had been before the invasion started and were still dropping. When five Konoha's camps blew up, especially the largest, which was my camp, we lost half of our Chuunin, a quarter of the original Chuunin population. The other fourth lost more than fifty percent guarding the civilians. The other half of the Chuunin force remains, probably. I'm not sure about my fellow shinobi, but I had managed to take out roughly a third of the invasion forces. Jiraiya-sama took out half. The remaining sixth consisted of A-Rank Jounin that took out ninety percent of our Genin forces. The remaining ten percent remains with the civilians. The ANBU forces are currently working with the remaining Jounin out there. Jiraiya-sama is being treated for electrocution, puncture wounds, and poisoning. As for the Jounin population, not very many of us remain. It appears to just be Ibiki, Anko, Hayate, Aoba, Kurenai, Asuma, Gai, and a few others."

"Now, the two of you, please tell me what districts and compounds were destroyed," Sarutobi looked at the Genin.

"The Uchiha compound was the first to blow up, half of the Hyuuga compound was destroyed, the merchant district lost twenty percent of their area, and various other commercial districts suffered little losses. However, the civilian and shinobi housing districts on the western and southern parts of Konoha were completely obliterated: they were blasted to smithereens, burned to a crisp, and stand alone as large heaps of rubble. Several craters exist, with the largest being at the southern gate," Kakashi cut in.

Sarutobi grunted, "Very well. You two are dismissed. Kakashi, I'd like to have a word."

The two Genin scurried out, terrified of the blank look on Kakashi, a shinobi with more red on his vest than green. It wasn't clear if Kakashi knew he was shaking where he stood, clenching his fists and jaw too many times, or knew about his silver hair having turned him into an Uzumaki look-alike. A famous war hero, yes, but a broken man even more so.

But no one had really known him, and fewer knew about what had happened two months ago and why he looked like shit as a result.

"Yes?" Kakashi asked patiently. He trusted his ex-ANBU comrades to do a good job. His black eye flicked over to the window, seeing an explosion of steam. Ah, yes, they were doing fabulously.

"Earlier today, I received a message from one of the newest ANBU members," Sarutobi started slowly.

"And?"

"This ANBU is the one in charge of Naruto and Sasuke," Sarutobi said after taking a drag too long, "Following an attack from a nuke nin, she was unconscious for a full week before waking up to find Naruto gone. Sasuke remains with her, but she wishes for someone to take Sasuke back to Konoha so she can hunt for Naruto without being burdened with Sasuke."

"And you would like for," Kakashi gave him an incredulous look, "Me," Kakashi pointed to himself, "To go? You know, Hokage-sama, I don't think I should be going outside. I need to help with rebuilding and searching for survivors after the ANBU finish up today."

"There are plenty of shinobi and civilians left to do that," Sarutobi said. "I will help as well. You, Hatake Kakashi, need a break. You've been through a lot recently."

Kakashi stopped with his upbeat attitude, "That's why I should be helping."

"No, Kakashi. You need to take a break from Konoha. This ANBU is far out in the countryside. It will do you some good to see peace," Sarutobi said.

"But Hokage-sama—"

"My order is final," Sarutobi snapped. "She is waiting here," Sarutobi handed him a map with a red dot in the northern part of the Land of Fire. "I don't care how long you take. I just want you to do this. There is no shinobi out there but you to help her."

Kakashi sighed in defeat. "Yes. Tell me, who exactly is she? What should she look like when I see her?"

"You'll know her when you see her," Sarutobi said. "Here's some money, a change of clothes, and a few ration bars."

"Thanks," Kakashi sealed it in a scroll and headed off, less happy than before.

* * *

"I'm going to buy some onigiri," Sasuke said, jingling the coins in his pocket. A cat jumped on his shoulder and purred.

"Don't mind him," Yonomi said, "Go on, Sasuke. Be back in ten minutes and don't make me come after you."

"Yeah," Sasuke cracked a smile and ran off. Yonomi smiled to herself before her mind went to her suspicions on who had taken the boy. It was most likely an Uzumaki member, but how they'd found Naruto so easily was worrying. Naruto was easily persuaded and the mere mention of his mother would be more than enough to get the boy to follow them. Naruto was a desperate orphan and as much as Yonomi understood that, she couldn't wrap her mind around him disappearing so quickly. _Well, I'll find that out when we find him, won't we?_

Then she pushed it aside. _That shinobi, whoever Sarutobi is sending, better come soon. Naruto's getting farther and farther and soon it'll be impossible to find him._

* * *

The next day, Sasuke decided, again, to go buy onigiri. After a bit of research, Yonomi found out that this village's specialty was chicken and she supposed he liked the taste of the chicken onigiri. The boy wasn't partial towards heavy things like ramen and onigiri was just something that he'd probably like anyway. Rice was tasteless, after all.

Her research came from a book that she was reading. She smiled a friendly smile at a man, an employee who was looking at her, at the bookstore and put the book down and walked out.

"Miss, wait!"

Yonomi was turning a corner when she turned, still clad in bandages, and saw the man, a bit taller than Kakashi and about four inches taller than she, and quite muscular with windswept deep brown hair, running towards her with a book in hand. She smiled, a bit annoyed, "Yes?"

"You forgot this," the man explained.

"I," Yonomi frowned, "Didn't buy this."

The man took a step forward and Yonomi's confusion inched up a little. "You can have it for free."

"I was just looking. I didn't want to buy it," Yonomi said, getting a little more annoyed.

"But you can have it for free," the man pressed the issue. Another step. "We need to get rid of some books to make room for new ones and new inventory. Come on."

"Really, sir, I don't want it," Yonomi felt her smile strain.

"Yes," the man smirked. Yonomi felt the ground come up to meet her and her back, still very wounded, felt like it was on fire. The man's hands, his yellow nails, dug into her shoulders and her eyes widened in shock.

She sensed more people come from somewhere, an alley, and then they held down her arms and legs and the man with a tall stature ripped away until the scars from her battle shown in the alley they dragged her to. Someone gagged her.

Then, her insides hurt. His nails dug into her and he cried out something about her body. Her body strained against all of the people holding her down and her face hurt from him punching her in the face and someone else laughed and laughed and then the man let his friend take his place and Yonomi was plunged into another painful world. Everything hurt. Everything was too cold, too hot, too much, and then the sky was interrupted with a moan from the man and someone else complained about blood.

She opened her eyes again and saw her hand in front of her face, burned. Her gauze lay in ribbons around her and she felt cold. She shivered and saw the white sky and her silver hair was singed and a few strands lay in her vision.

Time passed and she could feel someone coming closer.

Closer.

Closer.

 _Closer._

* * *

His eyes panned over her body, appalled. White gauze that covered up her burns and cuts and bruises were on display on the ground in the filth, along with a suspicious white fluid covering her body, especially one part of her body, that mixed with blood Her blood. His blood was beyond boiling. Murder was clear in his eyes, a mass murder.

But not yet.

He ran over to her, pushing past the crowd that just _looked_. They just looked! They didn't care! They didn't care about Konoha's best shinobi lying there, listless! He felt hot angry tears sting his eyes and he hated them. He hated their apathy! Kakashi emitted enough killer intent to make them all go running home and then laid his shirt on her delicate and broken form and gathered her up and carried her to the room indicated on a key in her pants, pants that were lying next to her, ripped apart, pocket. Inside was a boy around eight with black hair and fear in his eyes the moment he laid eyes on the seemingly lifeless woman that Kakashi was carrying.

He shut the door and set her in a bath and washed her body gently with soap and made sure her hair was clean from the filth that someone had dragged her into, and toweled her off. He'd picked up the scrolls that were cast to the side and found clean clothes and dressed her.

Tears began to fall on the tiled floor, like a huge explosion on the ground. She shook and fell to her knees, which inevitably began to bleed all over the floor. Kakashi knelt and shushed her softly and rewrapped her knees and checked her back for any sign of reopening. She grasped his shirt and wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed into his neck silently.

"You can cry, if you want," Kakashi said as his throat got thick and he tasted salt in his mouth.

She began to choke on her sobs and Kakashi was glad she didn't let go immediately. "I'm not okay," she admitted.

"Neither am I," Kakashi agreed. "Us Hatake aren't cut out for this kind of thing, huh?"

Yonomi shook her head slowly. "Let me sleep."

Kakashi nodded and smoothed a strand of hair back behind her ear and set her down to rest. She turned her back to him under the covers.

"What did the man look like?" Kakashi asked, anger laced into his voice.

"What man?" Sasuke demanded.

* * *

Night fell into midnight and then 3am. Kakashi sat on a chair with his hands between his knees, slouching slightly. Sasuke was barely asleep; it was painfully obvious the boy was faking it. Kakashi awoke to the sound of a hand tugging his sleeve.

"Follow me," Yonomi's voice was barely above a whisper.

Kakashi stood and followed his sister at an easy walking pace; she wasn't in any condition to be straining herself and using chakra, especially with her body being the way it was.

"What happened to your back?"

Yonomi stopped in her tracks. "I fought Itachi. Him and Orochimaru were looking for Naruto."

"What?" Kakashi spat. "That murderer?!"  
Yonomi smiled on the inside. _Itachi, you are quite the actor. You've deceived everyone, even Kakashi. That's impressive._ "Yeah," Yonomi didn't talk about the genjutsu. Kakashi might end up seeking him out and killing him. Or the other way around. Two Hatake had a fighting chance against Itachi. But one… Yonomi knew she was damn lucky. That and the fact that Itachi really didn't want to kill her.

Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why didn't I come to you after that night?" Yonomi sighed. "Let's spend the afternoon together, when we get back."

Kakashi nodded.

Yonomi led the way to a house with alcohol bottles littering the grass along with needles and various powders dotting the ground. She let out a burst of killer intent and broke down the door with a single finger. The tall man with windswept hair took a swig of alcohol as she burst through and then the bottle slipped out his hands. Yonomi's eyes burned with hate and she ran several kunai through his body. The women that lay around him like dolls, clearly drugged, stirred at the sight of the rapist being murdered.

A man in the back screamed, "That's the White Fang's kid! And his son!"

The other men in the house began to run for the back door, only to find Kakashi leaning against it, inspecting a kunai in his hand nonchalantly. He eye-smiled at them, "Yo."

Their bodies were pinned against the wall covered with piss, dried vomit, blood, semen, and probably more drugs and alcohol. Kakashi watched his sister summon chakra and then electrocute several other men. Her body flickered from person to person, one leg swinging this way one moment and then a hand crushing a windpipe the next moment. Kakashi knew her taijutsu was a bit above his skill level and he admired that about her. He knew she'd need to be carried back, but for now, he let her enjoy taking out her rage on them.

For some reason, to Kakashi's mild surprise, the man who'd forced himself upon his sister, appeared behind him. It was nothing for Kakashi to break his arm, but that still made him curious. "Shinobi, then?"

"Fuck you," the man hissed and missed when he tried to spit in Kakashi's face. Then he let out a scream. "Ah, well, there goes your second arm," Kakashi eye-smiled. "What do you want from my sister? I can assure you you'll be dead before you'll achieve anything else in your life, but scum as low as you interest me. Share and tell time, shinobi-san."

"You Hatake have strong blood," the man smirked shakily, shaking from the pain. "I hear you guys have some kind of kekkei genkai. I want that."

"Kekkei genkai don't work like that. And, I've never heard of any kekkei genkai," Kakashi said. "Plus, my sister may be better than I at shinobi fighting styles but she heals unspeakably slowly and has smaller reserves than most Jounin and fragile bones. What, you think that our kekkei geknai is some kind of innate ability to be good shinobi?" Kakashi scoffed.

"Nah," the man shook, "It's something else. I don't know, but I heard it was something to die for."

"Uh-huh," Kakashi said, completely unconvinced. He looked up to see Yonomi undoing genjutsu from some of the women, "Hey, Yonomi. Come over here for a second."

"What?" Yonomi crossed her arms. She saw the man Kakashi was restraining and then broke his wrists in a swift motion and enjoyed his screams. "You hurt more than that, asshole."

"He says we have some kind of kekkei genkai. Did Tou-san ever say anything?" Kakashi asked. She was a year older but that made absolutely no difference in their family dynamic. But she had a bit more memory than him, so she would be more credible.  
"What? No," Yonomi said a bit quickly. She took a kunai and then twisted it through his pants and then stabbed through his collarbones and choked him against a wall, "It's funny to think that you can hurt me and think you can get away with it. Don't forget, we're Konoha's heroes. You're nothing but scum under our feet," and then his eyeballs popped out and sprayed blood all over her face. She wiped it away, merely smearing it.

Kakashi caught her by the shoulders. "Nice work," he said. And meant it. "You're still as scary as ever."

She looked fatigued, "You think this is scary? Kushina-sensei was scarier. What a wimp, you are. Just like your sensei," she smirked.

"Thank you, Yonomi," Kakashi said. "For staying alive."


End file.
